Shedding apparatuses for weaving machines which have a heddle apparatus and a heddle frame are known in principle from numerous documents. WO-A-98/24955 discloses a weaving machine in which the dragging element for dragging the warp threads of a weaving machine and comprising for example a heddle frame is clamped between two springs. There, the dragging element oscillates and a holding device is capable of stopping the oscillation for a certain time, and so forming a shed during the weft insertion. The holding device from WO-A-98/24955 is intended to be controllable by means of a control unit. Permanent magnets which can be influenced by electromagnets have already been proposed for this.
However, the configuration with the two springs of WO-A-98/24955 takes up a relatively large space, as the drawings there also show. Furthermore, the controlled holding device is complicated, even if it takes the form of permanent magnets, because of the electromagnetic influence on the permanent magnets.